The Right To Marry

We love traditions. We are a family that has many traditions and we enjoy the yearly rituals of Christmas and other holidays. We have traditions stemming from our cultures and some we just invented with our extended family. Tradition should never be considered law since everything changes, families evolve and people move on. So when people use the argument that marriage is traditionally between man and women we agree wholeheartedly. However, that tradition must change.

The arguments against marriage equality are pretty standard when it comes from the right: it’s against God and what about the children. Funny thing is that that is what was said when slavery was in question, women wanted to vote and interracial couples wanted to marry. Same argument! It’s like watching George Wallace speak on the steps of the University of Alabama spouting the dangers of integration and how this was against God and would hurt our children but change integration with gay marriage and you would have the same conversation but in black and white.

When Paul was younger he played Dungeons and Dragons – I know, be jealous of me- and he even Dungeon Mastered. He played with a friend who tended to bend the rules a bit and would go on campaigns with one of his other friends who would basically stock the campaign with everything he ever wanted. He would have every staff ever invented, wands, potions, spells and weapons. Paul would often joke that it was impossible to play with this person since he would just pull out the staff of ‘I win’ and the game was over. There was something childish and unsportsmanlike about the behavior.

This is how I see the marriage equality debate. No one will sit and have an adult conversation about the implications of denying 10% of our population a right that the rest of us share and abuse. Marriage is not sacred. Marriage is not an institution created by God. If this were the case, the National Organization for Marriage should be fighting to end divorce or to create legislation to demand pre-marital counseling. Denying the right to marry to gay people will neither protect nor promote healthy marriage. All this bigotry does is make the National Organization of Marriage look like bullies or a white’s only country club.

The issue of marriage equality is not about gay or lesbian or transgendered or bisexual. It is simply about equality. We are a country based on the principle “that all men are created equal” and that belief should move and sway all political decisions. Denying marriage to gays is as un-American as denying the vote to blacks or women. Citing your right to free speech to spout these bigoted beliefs is the cafeteria style politics that the Religious Right and the Republican Party continue to play. We must protect life but must fight wars and put to death those who break the law. We must protect life but we cannot give them insurance to be healthy. If you have the right to say that Chik-Fil-A can donate money to the National Organization of Marriage or other bigoted groups then protesting them is our right as well.

What is most upsetting is that we are allowing the conversation to be dictated by the extremists. Being against gay marriage is not an opinion, it is a bias. This isn’t whether you prefer Ranch or Blue Cheese dressing. This is you judging whether a person can have the same rights as you. When you say no to that then you have made that person ‘less than’ you. So tradition or not, marriage should be the right of any adult. Keep your opinions, traditions and free speech to yourself.